Cobrah

Nice to meet you too! I'm joining from Sweden at the moment, and I’m doing good. I was just in the studio so I’m in my happy place. How are you?

I was in London two weeks ago, and the weather was awful. In Sweden, you walk along the river and it’s very fairy tale, snowy winter, wonderland vibes, but when you come to London it’s just grey.

I feel really good. I’ve been waiting for this album for a very long time. I thought I would have a debut album out five years ago, so I put quite high pressure on myself to make this the best album I ever could because I’ve been working on it for a very long time. I wrote most of the songs in late 2023, so it’s been in the process for some time and I’m enjoying the rollout for the moment. I feel very much in my element for this one.

I think the songwriting was the most challenging. I tried to work on it a lot. I felt like when you get the opportunity to make an album you can be more diverse in the way you write music, and I was only making EPs before and with those you have to be very to the point. When I was making EPs, I developed a sound and that sound I felt like I needed to evolve a little bit for it to fill out a full album. I really tried to improve the way I was writing and work more with melodies and more commercial things, more pop things, but also more artsy things. I tried to expand the Cobrah universe and that was really challenging because I had to walk on new paths that I hadn’t tried but I think I did a good job.

Yeah, I felt like I wanted to branch out more in my artistry. When I started doing Cobrah that felt very exciting and unique and fun and then when I was writing the album, it came to a point where I would hear a lot of people saying, “oh this sounds like a Cobrah song”, but it wasn't my song. I felt the culture was kind of catching up to what I set out to do but then it's not fun to make a song that sounds like a Cobrah song. I want to try to reinvent myself, and it's like you said, you become slightly boxed in if you only do one thing and people don't expect more of you. I wanted to show that I am a fully rounded artist in a sense.

This is a very seductive album. I hope they feel very seduced by this. It's giving a little fragility, which is very sexy. It’s intriguing. That's the big difference from the second EP, which was very full-frontal nudity, but I’m putting my clothes on a little bit and I'm seducing more.

You know what, this is such a lame inspiration, but it is the most truthful (laughs). I’m on TikTok all the time and I scroll for everything, and when I was writing the album I would see these edits — you know when they take an emotional song and they make an edit out of like a movie? I watched them and I would go to the studio and tell my producer that I want to make a song so that you can make an edit. Not literally, but it was just the vibe or concept. Obviously when I write it, it's not about TikTok anymore, I guess that was kind of one of the things that I was looking at that was a little bit inspiring.

The first song, Torn I wrote before the Succubus EP was out. I wrote it in the summer of 2023. I knew it was gonna be called Torn because I think torn is such a cool word and I told my producers and showed them different images I was really into — like dirt and mud and stone and stuff from harder things, but also more natural coloured things. I try to use nature a lot as inspiration because It's free for interpretation on how you adapt it.
We wrote a little when I was touring the Succubus EP and then I flew to Paris to start writing the album. I wrote a song the first day that sounded very much like something you would call a ‘Cobrah song’ and then I just felt very underwhelmed with the process, it didn't excite me anymore. We were there for a whole week, and I was like, “let's just write songs with no filter and then whatever happens happens”. That's where we wrote songs like Excusez Moi obviously because it's a French song and we were in Paris, but we also wrote Snow White and Hit girl as well. I think we started writing Platinum… things started to loosen for me, I didn't feel like I was shackled anymore just doing this one thing.
When I stopped touring in 2025, we kind of finished it, but it did take some time, because it is the first time I’m writing very personal music and you have to be slightly more careful on what you say and what you don't say and what you mean. This album is more about me and my more intimate world rather than writing only music for the vibes. It's kind of a half and half. That's partly why it's called Torn. It's like a half for the vibes like IG and Platinum but there's a little crack as well where there's some realness and honesty.

It was one of those songs that I wrote where I didn't know if I was going to put it on the album. Then whenever I hear it, I feel like I'm falling in love a little bit and I think we put it on the album because it deserved to be there. It was the most me, and I wanted to write about a real relationship. That's the only song that's about an actual relationship and the compromises that you have to make and it's about loving but it's also about the push and pull that you do in a relationship.
The album goes from Hush, which is the song about finding or falling in love with that person you meet at the club and Charming is about the ending of the relationship where you wish for this future with a house and dog and you’re with someone that just doesn't want the same thing, that just wants to fuck you basically (laughs). I tried to be truthful in the songs but I also in the way that I ordered them on the album it tells a grander story and they’re not just individual songs. 

I knew I was gonna have this creature because, for this album, it was really important to me that I was not going to transform into a character. I was going to have my real hair, my normal everyday makeup, I was going to be true to my essence and my nature, but I am a big gamer and I love fantasy. I'm such a nerd in my private life and I think that kind of spills over to my creative life. I was like, well I can't just have any old ordinary boyfriend, that's not fun. I'm an artist. I need to illustrate what this love is and how it feels, but in an artistic way. I'm obsessed with fantasy so I thought if I can't transform, because that's not what this era is about, let me find someone else to put all of this creativity into. I just love creatures. I mean in my last EP I had a latex alien. It's just fun to create fantasy, that’s what I'm all about.

Oh my god, the worst date I've ever been on… One time I flew to a different country to go on a date with a random person and then I was not very into that person, but within the first hour we bought a ticket back to go back to my country and spend another couple of days there — that was a really bad idea. So, I had to go through five days of a first date basically on a tour with this random person and I didn't really like her (laughs), and that was weird. I think that's probably the worst date I've ever been on — it was like five days!

Oh my god, I haven't even thought about that. I like to say Paris Hilton (laughs). She's fun and I think she would be so good on IG or Platinum or even Excusez Moi. She's just an icon. I like to work with icons more than musicians because it’s fun when you do a remix — I did it with Amanda Lepore. When you do remixes it doesn't have to be another artist, it could just be a cool person. I do think her music is pretty sick and I played it before my shows and I just like the vibe.

It was really, really fun to work with Ash and that track together. I was going to perform with her at Red Rocks in Denver and then I DM’d her there and I was like, 'Hey, wouldn't it be so cool if we do a song together for Red Rocks?', and she sent me this beat and then we met up in London and we finished it together. We played it at Red Rocks, but it took a whole year until it came out because this industry is so wild. 

What makes us Swedish artists unique is that I don't think any of us feel like we belong in the Swedish scene. I don't think that any of us are part of the Swedes; we’re the Swedes in the international scene, if that makes sense. It's funny how it's all correlating, like me, Zara Larsson, and Robyn putting out an album, Lykke Li just put out a single and is also playing Coachella with me, and I wish we were all in a group chat together being like, “Hey babes, let's get it going for 2026,” but somehow I guess we all synced up in energies and made this our year.

Oh, that's such a good question. I don't know at the moment. I'm so terrible, especially this month, it’s been so crazy (laughs). I don’t know who is coming out, do you know anyone?

Oh yeah, she is.

I'm very much in love with skin and its texture. When we did the cover for the album, I knew I wanted to be covered in stretch marks. I was like, oh, I've already been naked on my Succubus cover. I can't be naked on my next cover as well, which I kind of regret now because I could have just made a series of being naked on every cover, that could have been a statement (laughs).
I am sort of naked on this one as well because I work with this cool FX artist from Australia and he made this dress. It’s out of silicone, but it looks like it's out of skin. He glued it on my body and it's covered in stretch marks and it rips apart in the bottom and it looks like I'm draped in my own skin and in my own kind of tearing. This whole album is about the growing pains of opening up and trying to evolve and doing all of these big vulnerable things and so the texture of the album is of the skin ripping and the tearing. It's hard to explain it, but that that's the texture of it.

Oh, it did feel a lot like that when I was writing the album! I was constantly re-evaluating all my creative decisions and all my life decisions and that's the essence of what the song is about. It's a pull and push with yourself, and with everyone around you. Will you stay with me? Will you be here? Should I commit? Should I not commit? I wanted to bring that to life but, like I said before, I'm really into the fantasy of things. I'm never on the streets of New York hanging around, I'm always in a world that doesn't really exist except from in my mind and so I felt like it was a fun idea to try to visualise what that feeling is, the push and pull with yourself. It’s like a love-making scene and a fighting scene. If you look really close there's like three seconds where the creature from Hush comes in at the ending and kind of embraces me and that's the world where the Hush video begins. I try to make them, so that they're connected.

I'm going on a big big big big tour. A massive tour and I'm really excited for it. We're just starting to rehearse and bringing dancers. It’s the first time I can tour with a bigger crew, so I'm excited to have more people on stage. I creative directed the album and the videos and everything so I also work a lot with the stage design and together with the director from the music videos and with the choreographer. I keep a very tight core team of creatives around me and we try to make the whole era extend and come alive on stage as well. That's really what I'm planning and working on at the moment.

You know what? I saw Gaga recently on my birthday and it was brilliant. It was just incredible. I'm not gonna lie and be a cool girl and say it was okay. It was great. What impacted me was her opening scene, she didn't do all the bangers at the end, and she killed it from the start. That's such a cocky move.

Yeah, a little bit. I'm working on a whole story. It was really inspiring that she didn't kind of warm up the audience. She just started stronger than the audience was ready for and it really shook everyone and that was very cool.

Thank you so much, bye!